Anna Gunn On David Tennant: "An Incredibly Kind And Open Human Being"

Anna Gunn has spoken about her Gracepoint co-star David Tennant in an new interview with the LA Times.

"He is incredibly enthusiastic and buoyant and gregarious and funny. He greets everybody with tremendous excitement. He’s like, 'HELLLLLOOO!'” she said, talking about the moment the stars of the new Fox TV crime drama first met. 

Anna had some concerns about working with David on Gracepoint, the American remake of his UK series Broadchurch, particularly as she would be effectively stepping into the role originally played by Olivia Colman. It turned out that she had no need to worry and he greeted her with a warm hug in her trailer to dispel her anxiety

"David is an incredibly kind and open actor and human being," she said." So the minute we met, we shook hands and said hello and then we hugged and said, “All right, here we go.” It was a silent, unspoken mutual decision to just take our own journey with it.

"I could hear him outside the trailer and I was like, “Oh, that must be David Tennant.” So I opened my door, he walked up and he was like 'HELLOOO!' He was so gracious and lovely and nice. I said, 'Oh my gosh, I’m so happy to meet you. I’m such a fan of yours, you’re brilliant.' And he said, 'You’re not so bad yourself.' We just had a good rapport from the beginning. And I think any nerves of feeling "Oh, is this going to be weird?" were instantly dispelled."

 Gracepoint explores events in a small Californian town after a local boy is discovered murdered on the beach.David and Anna play detectives Emmett Carver and Ellie Miller who lead the investigation into the crime while the small community tears itself apart with grief and suspicion. Not only that, Carver and Milller have a difficult relationship after he walked into the job that she was promised. It was a difficult subject matter to work through for the actors, but they found that their own real life good relationship saw them through.

"We both have a similar sense of humor," Anna explained. "In between playing a lot of those scenes, which were very serious, we were able to have a good laugh and have some levity, which is extremely necessary when you’re descending into those depths of emotional grief and sorrow and darkness, and all the rest of it. You have to emerge from that at some point during a 13-hour day or else you are probably going to crazy. So I just couldn’t have asked for a better scene partner.

We really get on, and that’s a big relief when you’re sitting in a cop car for many, many hours. And we were together so much. It was great."

Read the rest of the LA Times interview here

Gracepoint premieres on Fox in the USA and on Global in Canada on Thursday 2nd October at 9pm ET.

Find out more about Gracepoint on our website